Pierre Werner

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Pierre Werner

Pierre Werner (born December 29, 1913 in Saint André near Lille , France , † June 24, 2002 in Luxembourg ) was a Luxembourg politician ( CSV ).

Training and first activities

Pierre Werner was born in France to Luxembourg parents. He was Prime Minister of Luxembourg for a long time, from 1959 to 1974 and again from 1979 to 1984 .

He studied at the law faculty of the University of Paris and at the École libre des sciences politiques (1935–1938). During this time he was a member of several Luxembourgish and international student movements, including Pax Romana ICMICA (International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs), of which he became vice-president in 1937.

After completing his doctorate in law in Luxembourg in 1938, he joined the Banque Générale du Luxembourg, where he worked for the management secretariat until October 1944. From 1942 he worked with the French resistance network of the Martin family and was able to convey various messages to the Luxembourg government in exile in London. After the war, Pierre Werner became an attaché in the Luxembourg Ministry of Finance. In 1945 he was appointed commissioner for banking supervision control. He held this position until 1949 - in addition to serving as a councilor. His responsibilities included the organization of banking supervision, the credit market and international cooperation in the financial sector. These tasks enabled him to get to know two newly created international financial institutions: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank .

Together with Jean Monnet , Pierre Werner was also involved in the Action Committee for the United States of Europe. He later became a founding member of the Fondation Jean Monnet pour l'Europe in Lausanne. As an activist of the Christian Social People's Party (CSV-PCS) , the Christian Democratic Party of Luxembourg, he became Minister of Finance and Defense in December 1953 after Prime Minister Pierre Dupong died unexpectedly. In the 1960s he made significant contributions to the foundations of the European Community . His plan proposed in 1970, the so-called Werner Plan , initiated the first attempt at establishing a European monetary union . However, it was dropped because of the economic problems at the beginning of the 1970s and only resumed in 1985 with the Delors Plan , which ultimately led to the establishment of the monetary union and the introduction of the euro .

As head of government, Werner advocated that the first SES Astra satellite was financially secured by a state guarantee. From 1989 to 1996 he was President of the Betzdorf company; thereafter he received the title of honorary president.

Pierre Werner also gave its name to the Pierre Werner Institute in Luxembourg.

Political mandates

From 1959 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1984 he was Prime Minister. Several ministerial departments have always been associated with this office, including:

  • 1954–1959: Minister of Finance and Defense
  • 1959–1964: Prime Minister and Minister of Finance
  • 1964–1967: Prime Minister, Minister of the Treasury, Foreign Minister and Minister of Justice
  • 1967–1969: Prime Minister, Minister of the Treasury, Minister of Public Service
  • 1969–1974: Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, Minister for Cultural Affairs
  • 1979–1984: Prime Minister, Minister of the Treasury, Minister for Cultural Affairs

From 1974 to 1979 he was a member of parliament and chairman of the Christian-Social parliamentary group . During this time he was also an opposition leader in parliament. In 1979 the CSV-PCS won the Luxembourg parliamentary elections. Since Pierre Werner was also elected to the European Parliament at the time, he renounced this mandate in order to become Prime Minister again. He held this office until 1984 and was Minister of the Treasury and Minister for Cultural and Religious Affairs at the same time. During this time, he worked to solve the economic and social problems related to the severe steel crisis. At the same time he set the course for the implementation of a media policy based on the use of telecommunications satellites. The fact that Luxembourg rose to become an international financial center is largely thanks to Pierre Werner.

European commitment: the Werner report

In the course of the European summit in The Hague in 1969 and the Barre Plan of 1970, Werner was appointed chairman of a committee of experts at the request of the Council of the European Economic Community (EEC) in March of the same year. This committee was responsible for drawing up a step-by-step plan for the implementation of Economic and Monetary Union ( EMU ). The work of the committee resulted in the Werner Report, which was presented to the European Commission and the governments of the member states on October 8, 1970 .

The groundbreaking report represented a milestone in the European integration process. It was envisaged that an economic and monetary union would be created, which entailed extensive transfers of national competences in terms of monetary policy to the European Community.

The implementation of economic and monetary union should take place in two phases. In the first phase, which was to last three years and began on June 1, 1971, the basic economic and monetary policy objectives were gradually defined jointly. Exchange rate margins between the currencies of the Community should be gradually reduced and fluctuations should generally be limited to relatively stable ranges. The second phase provided for measures that had already been taken to be followed up in a more binding form. In 1973 the European Fund for Monetary Policy Cooperation (FECOM) was founded. The latter would later undertake the necessary interventions in the foreign exchange markets in order to maintain monetary cohesion between the Member States. Finally, a council was also set up to determine the macroeconomic policies of the six countries.

The European Commission was to draw up its own plan on the basis of the Werner report, which was adopted by the six countries on March 22, 1971. The program, divided into three phases, should lead to the creation of an economic and monetary union before the end of the decade. Despite the political will of its members, the implementation of the Economic and Monetary Union - within the framework of which the currency snake was initially created - was in part in jeopardy by the world currency crisis in spring 1971 ( dollar crisis ) and the oil crisis of 1973. A certain stability did not emerge until 1978, and the idea of ​​a political union was taken up again as part of the European Monetary System (EMS). The core of the system was the unit of account according to the contract, which was given the name ECU.

In 1982 and 1983 there were new upheavals in the EMS, whereupon the European Council in Stuttgart decided to complete the common market with a single market and thus convert it into an economic and monetary union. This monetary union was enshrined and ratified in the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. The Werner Report of 1971 was the basis for developing the currency union.

In 1971, Pierre Werner received the Robert Schuman Gold Medal . This was intended to honor his long-standing European commitment - especially on the side of Jean Monnet in the Action Committee for the United States of Europe. In October 1998 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize by Prince Felipe of Spain . The reason for the award was his contribution in the process of the European single currency, which reached its climax with the creation of the euro.

Other activities

Although Pierre Werner had retired from the political stage in 1984, he was still committed to public and cultural affairs.

From 1985 to 1987 he was chairman of the board of directors of Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion (CLT, “Radio Luxembourg”). From 1989 to 1996 he was Chairman of the Board of Directors of Société européenne des Satellites (SES). In 1996 he was made honorary president. As part of his last political mandate, he laid the foundations for founding this company. Pierre Werner fought both in Luxembourg and abroad for the implementation of his vision of a medium-performance satellite that would allow his country to become a pioneer in the field of global satellite telecommunications.

As a member of the supervisory board of the Banque Centrale du Luxembourg (BCL) , Pierre Werner actively contributed to the establishment of the European System of Central Banks in 1998, the main features of which he had outlined in his report 30 years earlier. He was a member of this council until the end of 1999.

He was also a member of the Commission Nationale d'Éthique of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

Pierre Werner died on June 24, 2002 in Luxembourg .

bibliography

  • Pierre Werner, Itinéraires Luxembourgeois et Européens OCLC 34009350
    • Memoirs 1945 to 1985, published by Editions Saint-Paul, Luxembourg, 1991–92, 2 volumes OCLC 535179645
  • Report to the Council and the Commission on the gradual realization of economic and monetary union in the Community: Werner Report , Bulletin of the European Communities, Supplement 11/70, EUR-OP, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1970
  • Pierre Werner, Vers l'Union monétaire européenne , Les Cahiers rouges, Center de recherches européennes, Lausanne, 1971. DNB 576915416
  • Pierre Werner, L'Union monétaire reconsidérée , Center de recherches européennes, Les Cahiers rouges, Lausanne, 1977 OCLC 4489118
  • Pierre Werner, is the European Council paving the way for the European Union?  : Lecture given in Bonn on January 21, 1981. German Society for Foreign Policy eV DNB 946628254
  • Henri Rieben, A Luxembourg, au cœur du chantier européen , avec Jean Monnet et Pierre Werner, Les Cahiers rouges, Center de recherches européennes, Lausanne, 1989. DNB 57583420X
  • Current problems of European monetary and financial policy at the Euroforum (international study conference) Saarbrücken, 1968

published by the Economic Council of the CDU, Bonn, Ölbergstrasse 13

  • L'EURO, Vision, Histoire, Réalité Lecture by Pierre Werner, Honorary President of the Luxembourg Government and former Minister of Finance, at the inauguration of the Caja de Asturias cultural center in Oviedo (Spain) on October 24, 1998

Honors

Web links

Commons : Pierre Werner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ CVCE: reassessment of the Werner report , in Luxemburger Wort, Luxembourg, November 27, 2012.
  2. Werner, Pierre (entry in the Luxembourg authors' lexicon )
  3. CORTAY, Linda. Envers et contre tous, le Luxembourg a lancé Astra: 25e anniversaire du lancement du premier satellite luxembourgeois. In Luxembourgish terms . Monday 9 December 2013. pp.2-3.
  4. ZIMMER, Paul. ASTRA: a success story. In Innovation: Integration: Festschrift For Pierre Werner . KIRT, Romain; MEISCH, Adrien; WERNER, Pierre. Luxembourg: Saint-Paul Verlag, 1993. OCLC: 41492719. pp.135-144